


nothing is as it has been

by allthelight



Category: His Dark Materials (TV), His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
Genre: Alternate Universe, Canon Divergence, Gen, Lyra Knows Asriel Is Her Father, father/daughter bonding-ish, slight humour
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-16
Updated: 2020-03-16
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:42:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23176396
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allthelight/pseuds/allthelight
Summary: “What makes you think that I know?” He says lightly, feeling a little mischievous. “What makes you think that I even know who your mother is?”He feels Stelmaria’s surprised glance land on his skin, and then sees her shake her head in something like disappointment. She won’t give him away, but neither will she partake in this game. Asriel pays her no heed.Lyra narrows her eyes. “Nah,” she says, shaking her head as if to dismiss the entire possibility. “You have to know. You just have to.”“Why must I have to?”“Cause of the story,” she says, looking at him beseechingly. “‘Cause otherwise how would we have gotten here?”A father/daughter bonding moment. They're trying, at least.
Relationships: Lord Asriel & Lyra Belacqua
Comments: 2
Kudos: 75





	nothing is as it has been

**Author's Note:**

> hello! Here I am, again! I know it's only been like two days or something since I last posted but I kind of really like this one and I want to share. And I figure that more and more people will be turning to ao3 and other places to help them through these times so I am more than happy to provide! I hope you're all taking care of yourselves and staying safe and being kind! 
> 
> This could technically be considered a sequel to 'all that never was' but it doesn't have to be. It fits in with the same idea, though!
> 
> I hope you enjoy :)

“Who’s my mother?”

They have this conversation over and over again, a wheel without any rest that he fears will spin on into the infinite should he let it. There’s a system to her question; he has her all figured out now. Lyra asks at moments when she feels his guard is down, when he is either resting or absorbed in another task so he will not think too much about giving her the answer. It’s quite calculating for an eleven-year-old. He doesn’t have to wonder who she gets that from.

They sit in his rooms at Jordan College, Lyra on the floor and he at his desk. Stelmaria is on the floor in front of the fire, seemingly resting but one eye on Lyra as she completes anbarology work that the librarian cannot make her sit still for. Asriel grumbles at being used as a babysitter, but he himself is working on papers and mostly the girl is quiet, allowing him to work interrupted.

He has tried. It’s important to note, even if he doesn’t think so himself. Their relationship is new to both of them; Asriel doesn’t know how to be a father anymore than Lyra knows how to be a daughter and they both stumble along, both pretending that they’re sure-footed, utterly unaware of just how similar they both are.

That’s not to say he has changed, because he hasn’t, not entirely. Perhaps he isn’t as dismissive of Lyra, he lets her sit there and complete her work, asks her more questions about her day, comes to Jordan College for more visits, driven by some unconscious desire that even Stelmaria doesn’t know what to name of it. But he’s still distant, still forgets about Lyra for vast amount of time and finds himself uncomfortable at admitting things that he’s had to quell for over a decade. His research still comes first in his mind, and both he and Lyra are acutely aware of it, both relieved for it, really. If things had changed that much, they both know they might not have been able to bear it.

“I’m not going to tell you,” he says simply, not even looking up from the book he’s taking notes from. “Focus on your work.”

“I _can’t_ ,” Lyra huffs, throwing down her pen and rolling over onto her back, Pantalaimon jumping onto her chest as a rabbit. “There’s too many questions in my head.” She looks at Asriel, big brown eyes widening innocently. “If you just told me then maybe I could focus better. I wouldn’t have to wonder, see?”

He laughs lowly, feeling Stelmaria’s vague amusement in his chest. “Your bargaining needs work.”

He feels Lyra’s hopeful eyes zone in on him and he can’t help but look at her, then. “Does that mean you’ll tell me?”

He shakes his head. “No.”

Telling her about Marisa Coulter would serve them both no purpose, and would only cause unnecessary pain and disappointment. He’s not quite so oblivious that he can’t realise what Lyra wants. She wants a fairy tale mother, some tragic tale about how she was snatched as a baby by evil outside forces and had to be left at Jordan for her own safety by a father who could never tell her that. She wants her mother to have wailed over her, to have driven herself mad with grief. She wants her mother to be exactly that, and that is something that Marisa never has been.

The story is mostly true, but the part that Lyra wants most of all isn’t, and he finds that he doesn’t really have the heart to lie to her about it, but neither does he have the heart to destroy whatever picture she has been painting throughout her life.

He tells himself it’s because he couldn’t deal with the fallout, and he couldn’t, but that’s not only the reason. It’s something much simpler than that, but it comes down to the feeling he cannot name.

“Ugh. That en’t fair. How come everyone gets to know and I don’t?”

He sighs and puts down his pen, looking at his daughter. She is quite unafraid of him now, no longer has the reverence in her eyes. Instead there is a fire, fiercer than anything he has encountered before, and in the eight months or so since they had an almost-reconciliation she is relentless in her pursuit for answers that she knows fine well only her father will give.

“What makes you think that I know?” He says lightly, feeling a little mischievous. “What makes you think that I even know who your mother is?”

He feels Stelmaria’s surprised glance land on his skin, and then sees her shake her head in something like disappointment. She won’t give him away, but neither will she partake in this game. Asriel pays her no heed.

Lyra narrows her eyes. “Nah,” she says, shaking her head as if to dismiss the entire possibility. “You have to know. You just have to.”

“Why must I have to?”

“Cause of the _story_ ,” she says, looking at him beseechingly. “‘Cause otherwise how would we have gotten here?”

He presses his fingertips together, regarding his daughter with the same kind of stubbornness as she regards him. They are well-matched opponents. He could say a lot for Lyra, but never that she wasn’t interesting.

“And what do you know of the story, hm?”

“I know that you’re my father,” she says, starting off confident. “And I know that my mother en’t dead, and-”

“How could you possibly be sure of that?” Asriel interjects and ignores Stelmaria’s sharp glance.

“Cause you en’t dead. You told me my parents were dead. If you en’t then why would she be?”

“That isn’t logical and you know it.”

“What’s _logic?”_

 _“_ Sense,” he tells her. “Reason. Just because I’m not dead doesn’t mean your mother isn’t.”

For a second he wonders if he’s gone too far, that he’s played this game too long, but Lyra doesn’t look as crestfallen as he had feared. Instead she just looks curious, and he recognises the gleam in her eye; she has latched onto something. He just has no idea what.

“Is she? Dead, I mean.”

“Does it matter?”

Lyra nods. “Uh-huh.”

“Why?”

“Cause I want to know if I’ll get to meet her someday. If she’s alive then I will, one day when I’m all grown up and you won’t be there to stop me.”

There’s a fire in her eyes, a look of pure determination, and he recognises it as one he has seen both in the mirror and in Marisa. They created someone extraordinary, so they did, and if only she hadn’t betrayed him then he might have been able to appreciate what she had given him.

He narrows his eyes at his daughter, recognising the challenge. He wants to say _over my dead body will you meet your mother_ but he can’t. She is right, when she is grown he will have no more control over her life, as much as he wishes to retain it. The thought of Lyra and Marisa coming face to face, however, causes such a constriction in his chest. There is a reason why he has done what he has. He wants Marisa nowhere near her.

“That will be awfully tricky,” he says, “if you don’t know who she is.”

“So she _is_ alive!” Lyra grins triumphantly. “I knew it! I knew she wasn’t dead!”

“That isn’t what I said at all,” Asriel returns, but they both know the pretence is pointless now.

“You may as well tell me now,” she says in a sing-song voice. “Get it all over and done with.”

“Lyra, I am not telling you who your mother is and that is final.”

There’s a resounding silence, his words echoing around and around the room. Even the fire doesn’t dare crackle. He’s not quite sure why it’s so unsettling, until he realises that he must have spoken sharper than he intended to. Stelmaria looks at him sharply, reprimanding him, warning him not to do that again.

Lyra blinks at him, undeterred. He coughs, shakes his head to clear it, and looks back down at his book.

“Complete your work. It will soon be time for bed.”

“Did you love her?”

Any other child, even Lyra herself a few months ago, would have been put off by his outburst, would have tucked their tail between their legs and remained quiet. Not Lyra, of course. Never Lyra.

He doesn’t deign to answer, instead concentrates on the pages in front of him, trying to make the inky smudges reform into legible words.

“I think you do.”

He looks up at his daughter, sighing as he does so. Pantalaimon is an owl on her shoulder, wide eyes betraying a wisdom he didn’t know they possessed.

“What?”

“Love her. Cause if you didn’t then it would be fine. You would just say who she was, or that maybe you didn’t know, and that would be that. But you don’t because you love her, and maybe she hurt you, and you don’t want to speak about it. It hurts too much.”

He stares at her, dumfounded. There is nothing in his throat to grab onto, no sound he can force out. It takes him a minute. Something that’s almost a smile twitches at the corner of his lips and he shakes his head in disbelief. “And what would you know about it?”

Lyra shakes her head. “Nothing. I dunno about grown-up love but it can’t be that much different to other kinds.”

 _Love._ What would his daughter know of love? He wouldn’t know. She certainly seems to speak more sense than anybody else, even though he would never dare admit it. She has looked into his soul and she has picked him out, picked apart the reasons why he keeps Marisa away from anything surrounding their daughter. He must keep them separate to keep himself sane, but as Lyra grow older the lines blur and sometimes he looks at his daughter and in a certain light he swears he’s looking at her mother.

“Come here,” he says, beckoning her over with his finger. Her daemon turns into a small ermine, when once upon a time he would have turned into a mouse.

When she stands in front of him he looks her up and down, wondering when she got so big, and also wondering how she could still be so young and say such things.

“There are things you don’t understand,” he tells her lowly. “Things you may not understand for a long time. And there are things you’re better off not knowing about, not now, and perhaps not ever. Trust me, Lyra, that this is one of those things.”

She stands, hands clasped together, and looks into his face as if to decide whether or not to believe him, to trust him as he has asked of her. He finds that he couldn’t blame her if she chose not to. He has lied to her for so long that asking for trust seems cheeky, and yet he still does so. If there’s a chance he will take it.

“I want to know her, though,” she says, bottom lip tripping out. “I want to know who she is.”

“Lyra,” he says, holding her eyes, entreating. He takes a deep breath. “ _Please._ ”

Something changes in her face, something instantaneous, and her bottom lip pops back in and she smiles that childlike smile.

“I _suppose_ ,” she says, and he recognises the mischievous look in her eyes. “If you’ll take me North with you.”

He huffs, though he should have expected something of this sort. This is Lyra Belacqua after all. “You are impossible,” he says, turning slightly away from her. “The North is no place for a child.”

“I knew you’d say that.” She crosses her arms and purses her lips; her thinking face. “Well can I come with you to the Arctic Institute then, next time you go?”

If he were ever going to see Marisa then it would be at the Institute. It would be the most ridiculous idea to take Lyra out of Jordan, where she is s _afe,_ and into the open world.

Yet there’s something in the idea that attracts him to it. Marisa might not even be there, and the scholars who dominate that place know very well that happened all those years ago. Nobody would dare take Lyra from him now, of that he is quite certain. The times have changed. The scandal, whilst still big, has lost its allure. They are yesterday’s news.

“Alright,” he relents, leaning back in his chair. “You may accompany me to the Institute, the next time I decide to go.”

“Really?” The look on Lyra’s face is one of pure, unadulterated joy, and he suspects this was her true request all along. “You mean I can actually go?”

“I don’t go very often, mind you.” Her face is so ridiculously happy and Stelmaria, who has come over to join them, has her head cocked to the side. “But yes, you may come with me.”

“Thank you!” She says, hugging him briefly around the shoulders, and it’s so unexpected, so different, that he stiffens immediately, even as Lyra lets go. Her eyes sparkle. “You promise?”

He sighs, feeling slightly adrift and unsure, yet also happy. Perhaps he is not as terrible at this as first thought.

“Yes,” he tells her. “I promise.” And finds that it’s one he fully intends to keep.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! Please feel free to leave kudos/comments, please feel free not to. I understand it's maybe not the time. I hope you have lovely days!


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